Shine
by VioTanequil
Summary: She had jumped onto his head from god-knows-where, screaming something inaudible because her teeth were now trying to gnaw away at his head. He was sick of it. Rated T for Language.


"Urgh! Stupid! Ball of... urgh!" The Eleventh Division instinctively ducked as the third seat, one very pissed off Madarame Ikkaku came around the corner, a pronounced scowl on his face, glaring at everyone else. No one smiled. No one twitched. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of Houzukimaru. Nu uh. Not yet.

Especially since Unohana taicho was still angry over the incident. Frankly, none of them could remember which incident it had been, but well, that was just because there had been too many of those incidents. And no one really knew how they knew that she was still angry. It might have been something to do with the fact that Fourth was avoiding both the mention of them, and Unohana taicho, at the same time, though how it was that they were her division and yet were avoiding her, no one knew.

In any case, the third seat looked angry. Very angry. Incredibly angry. It was at times like this when they wondered where Ayesegawa-san was, but well, they just had a bad feeling about it. Thank god Zaraki-taicho was away at some captains' meeting. He would throw a fit if he saw them cowering like that, and Zaraki fits normally meant something large, fast and sharp being flung in their direction. Yes, you guessed it. Him wielding that nameless yet ever so scary zanpakuto. Which was almost as scary as Ayesegawa-san and his Fujikujaku with its supposedly unknown ability. (There were rumors that it was kido-based, but nah. That was impossible.)

"Whatcha looking at? Huh? Wanna fight?" Ikkaku's hand crept towards his zanpakuto hilt, a maniacal grin on his face as he leant towards the unranked shinigami, head jerking upwards slightly as the grin morphed into a smirk.

"S-Sum-mimasen!! Madarame-sama!" Said unranked shinigami bowed shakily. His brain had just deserted him. (Oh woe. All hail the disloyalty of the singularly most important organ in your body.)

"Hmph. Wouldn't be fun to fight, anyway." With that, Ikkaku was gone from the courtyard, and Eleventh let out a collective sigh of relief, before turning to each other, smirks on their faces. "Were you scared, huh? Wimp!" And the daily chaos that was training began once more, under the watchful (violent) eye of the sixth seat.

Ikkaku looked around him. Good no one about. Placing Houzukimaru down next to a chair, he sank into said chair, left hand rubbing circles on his scalp irritably. "Stupid brat. What's with her fucking obsession with my head. S'not like she's got nothin' better ta do." Growling at a slight noise outside of the door, Ikkaku glared at the shadow on the other side of the shoji door.

The shinigami, the one who did the paperwork when Yumichika didn't (hey, someone's gonna need to write down who killed what, why, when, how and how many, right?), quickly got out of there, as fast as he could. Paperwork wasn't so important, and besides, Zaraki taicho was currently somewhere else. And Zaraki taicho didn't really care anyway.

Ikkaku sighed. It was the fifth time this week already. The fifth time. The fifth time she had jumped onto his head from god-knows-where, screaming something inaudible because her teeth were now trying to gnaw away at his head. It was the fifth time this week already. And it was Monday. Monday morning.

He really needed to do something about the damned shine. Or at least that's what Yumi said caused her to jump at him. Something about the shine being alluring to kids who supposedly loved shiny stuff. Fat chance. If it had been the case, then he would have been jumped by half a million kids by now.

(Ikkaku happily ignored the fact that he would be hard pressed to find half a million kids around Soul Society, and the other fact that it would be exceedingly difficult to even find three kids within Seireitei. He could only name two, and the second one, well, let's just say that Ikkaku likes the warmth and toasty-ness of sitting around a fire as much as anyone else.)

He sighed. Stupid brat. Forever chewing on his head. Duude, his head did not taste good. He was pretty sure that it did not taste good. Yachiru loved sweet things. He, Madarame Ikkaku, Third Seat of the Almighty Zaraki Kenpachi's Eleventh Division, was _not_ sweet. Hell no. No. No. No. No freaking way in hell. Ever. Urgh.

Cleansing his mind of the image, he was about to regain his normal self and go out to beat up a couple of assholes who stood one second too long in his way. He was about to do that, when a sardonic voice in his head sounded. "Oh? You're not _sweet_, Ikkaku? Are you absolutely sure of that?"

The voice was sickly sweet, and Ikkaku shuddered, before remembering himself, and who the asshole was that was talking in his head. "Hell no, Houzukimaru! Hell no! I ain't nice like _you_!" He tried to shake a fist at his zanpakuto's spirit, but since he was currently not in his inner world or whatever those things were called, it didn't really work. (Reports say that Ikkaku had been shaking his fist at the air, conveniently in front of one of Yumichika's many mirrors.)

"Oh _really_, now? Then what on _earth_ is that thing you bought for the little pink one? Why is it that you put up with her and haven't killed her out of sheer exasperation yet? Why is it that you buy candies? And why is it that you…" A sneer was beginning to form on Houzukimaru's face, Ikkaku was absolutely sure. (Even if he could not see it.) The lazy asshole really loved to take opposite sides in an argument.

"Shut up! You're a part of me, remember, asshole?" He glowered at Houzukimaru (read: air), shaking his fist at the spirit (read: air). "Damn fucking zanpakuto. You're always to damned ready to argue, never ready to work hard. You fucking hypocrite."

"Speak for yourself, you overachieving loser. Why push yourself so hard when you don't have to?" He could just see Houzukimaru crossing his arms, annoyed. Prissy asshole.

"What d'ya mean by don't have to, lazy bastard? Hm? Who's the one who trained twice as hard so that we could get bankai? And then who's the one who has to do all the work when we use bankai, hm?" He glared at Houzukimaru (read: air) once more, before snorting. "Me, that's who. I'm the one who makes sure we don't die because of your lazy habits! And in case you forgot, when I die, you die too! Asshole."

"Whatever, Ikkaku. I _still_ don't understand why we need bankai. You're never going to be anything other than a Third Seat, so why bother, hm?"

"Shut the fuck up. I always want to be stronger, ya got me? I want to get strong enough to fight at least on par with _Zaraki taicho_."

"That's not happening anytime in the next century. Or the next one. Or the one after that."

"Yeah, that's cos you're one fucking _lazy_ bastard."

"Fine, fine. Fair enough. But as I was saying, before you so horribly changed the topic, that you, Madarame Ikkaku, are sweet."

"Aw, hell no, Houzukimaru. You're the sweet one. I'm the lean mean fighting machine, remember?"

"And I'm part of your soul, stupid. If I'm sweet, then you are too. Hah. What've you got to say to that, hm?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"No can do, boss. It is the zanpakuto's duty to speak up whenever it thinks that its owner is being one, a jackass, two, really, really stupid, or three, suicidal."

"Houzukimaru…" A low growl was emitted.

"Hey!! It says so here. See, Chapter Four, Section Seven, Pages Eight Hundred and Ninety-Five to Pages Nine Hundred and Twenty, The Psychological Purposes of a Zanpakuto, Clause Three, Intervention, from the Zanpakuto Handbook For Idiots."

"…For Idiots?"

"Before you even start on that sentence, remember, Ikkaku. I'm part of you. I'm part of your soul. I have your characteristics, and you have mine, remember?"

"HOUZUKIMARU!"

"Uh uh. C'mon. Admit it already. You're sweet. I mean, why the hell would anyone else want to shine his already damn shiny head, hm? And especially with something that tastes quite okay?"

"How the fuck would you know it tastes okay?"

"I'm part of your soul. When you read the label of the lotion on that shelf, I read it too, stupid."

"Hah! Then you're admitting that you're stupid?"

"You're changing the topic, Ikkaku. This is no laughing matter."

"Fine! Fine! Fucking fine! Yes, alright?! I'm sweet, alright?"

"I love Yachiru to pieces even though she's fucking annoying, but she's like the little sister I never had, because Yumi doesn't count!"

"Yachiru's so sickly sweet it hurts, but it hurts more when she goes out and does something stupid and comes back in pieces!"

"I can't stand her when she jumps or spits or chews on me, but it feels funny when she's not there doing that, or screaming Pachinko ball, or Cue ball, or whatever it is that I'm being called for the next hour!"

"I love Yachiru so much that I shine my fucking head every fucking morning with lotion so that when she jumps on it and starts chewing, it won't taste funny!"

"I shone my head in the first damn place because she started teething and needed something to chew and I lost the scissors-paper-stone fight with both Yumi and Zaraki taicho!"

"ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW, HOUZUKIMARU?"

No response.

"HOUZUKIMARU!"

A tug on his hakama brought him back to reality. He looked down at a blinking Yachiru, finger on her lower lip, looking guilty. He decided that he did not like that look on her. She didn't look like his baby sister that way. Too grownup for him.

"Ya don't like it when I jump on you, Baldy?"

He blinked.

"Ya should've said, Baldy. Ya should've said. Then I wouldn't do it anymore."

He blinked again.

"I-I'm sorry, Baldy. Didn' know you didn' like it." She chewed on her bottom lip nervously, hopping up into his lap.

Ikkaku blinked again.

"But I like ya too, Baldy. I think you're cool. Not as cool as Ken-chan, but still cool."

There was a pause.

"Can I chew your head, Baldy?"

He blinked.

"Um. Yeah. Go ahead. Just not too hard, ya? Sometimes it hurts a little if you chew too hard."

" 'Kay!" She giggled and hopped onto his head, chewing away happily. Through the weird feeling of someone's jaws closing around the back of his head in a rather brutal massage, Ikkaku decided that her happy giggles were worth being called 'Baldy' for.

It was worth it, this shine of his.


End file.
